Top court KOs burial bid by 9/11 families

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It is an image that haunts the families of 9/11 victims: Their loved ones' remains mingled with debris at the former Fresh Kills landfill.

And now, their bid for a proper burial has failed in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bill Doyle, for one, has no doubt that his son's ashes are at the landfill.

Joey Doyle's American Express credit card, photo identification and two club cards were found at the dump.

Yet he believes he is one of 1,100 yet-to-be identified victims from the World Trade Center attacks whose remains will continue to be mixed with household garbage.

And after the Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a bid by relatives of those victims to get New York City to provide a proper burial for material taken from the World Trade Center site, Bill Doyle, formerly of Annadale, fears he will never be able to give his son a proper burial.

"Now what do we do? My son will never be identified," Doyle said. "That's where he was. It's obvious."

The justices said yesterday they would not hear the appeal from the families of some of those killed when the 110-story Twin Towers collapsed nine years ago. Lower federal courts had dismissed the families' lawsuit against the city, saying it acted responsibly in moving 1.6 million tons of materials from the site in Lower Manhattan to the landfill and then sifting through the material for human remains.

No remains have been found for roughly 1,100 of the 2,752 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The families argue that 223,000 tons of the material was never sifted for remains.

"They said my son has no rights because he is now undifferentiated dirt," said Diane Horning from New Jersey. "They said in court that if these ashes were flushed down the toilet, that would not be unconscionable."

Officials say the material that is the subject of the litigation resulted from a 10-month search in which law enforcement authorities and others manually and mechanically searched World Trade Center material for evidence, personal belongings and human remains.

The process produced nearly 20,000 human remains that were sent to the New York City medical examiner's office for identification and return to the next of kin, he said. The medical examiner continues the work of identifying remains.

According to Norman Siegel, the attorney representing the 17 families who are part of the case, the city said it would cost too much to move the materials to a different location. The families had suggested turning a vacant site across the street from the landfill into a small park and burying the materials there.

Siegel said he had collected affidavits from former Sanitation workers who reported seeing human remains at the landfill.

"When the Supreme Court said no, the court system said it is not willing to at least address this issue," Siegel said. "We are extremely disappointed. We think a substantial wrong has been committed and justice has not been served."

Ms. Horning, who was leading the families through the appeal, was distraught when reached at home yesterday.

"I am shocked," she said. "I feel that my boy and all the people with whom he died have been victimized twice: once by the disgusting people who murdered him, and the second time by Mayor Bloomberg and his henchmen who decided that he's garbage."